Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Journal Painting & 'Fraid of Fractions

Procession
acrylic on paper
8 1/4" x 5"


Dad was right—you’ve got to spend more time on those subjects that are tough, like math. He told me that at a very young age, when I was baffled and perplexed by “Modern Math” as well as basics such as fractions. Math never came easy for me, ever. It wasn’t like history or English, which I loved and got good grades in. No, math was like studying a foreign language from another planet; it never made sense in my brain. A lot of it still doesn’t! Did I miss those sections in elementary school? Am I forever doomed to not understand fractions?




Because I’m so enamored with bookbinding right now, I have to force myself to learn something about those wily fractions I so detest! Baffled and perplexed when instructors in two bookbinding classes said to measure 3/16” or 18/32”, I looked in vain on the standard ruler. Yikes! Ugly fractions rear their nasty head again! Shall I give in and learn fractions? Or shall I cheat and turn the ruler over to the metric system? Much more logical, really. Or shall I remain blissfully ignorant and get some of those brass measuring rulers I’ve seen advertised on vendor’s sites?

Although numbers rule, I don’t find them very fun nor creative. But, in order to finish some books a-waiting, in order to create other books, in order to keep the door open to bookbinding, I must get past this obstacle. Seems the more I try to fight it, the more I put up a sign inside my mind: "This doesn’t make sense!! I HATE Math!!"

Sigh. OK. First, I remove the sign and leave my mind open. Check. Now, I do a Google search about easy way of learning fractions and how to use a ruler measurements. Check. Ohhhh…. It’s beginning to make sense. Check. I think I got it. Allright!


Do you have math horror stories to relate? Have they interfered with you creating? How have you worked around your problems?

The above brayer painting is the result of needing a purely creative and color break from altered book collage and bookbinding. Testing a new watercolor Moleskine notebook, I like the paper and how acrylics work on them but not thrilled with the landscape size.

5 comments:

  1. There are some artists who excel at Math. I'm not sure what the connection is, probably the visual/spatial thing. I was in school at a time when we switched from Imperial to Metric here in Canada so I can function in both, weridly enough.

    PS Love the little painting.

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  2. Math is not my thing either. Love the painting.

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  3. Metric makes so much sense since it is based on 10, Andrea. If you had told me as a child I’d make my living using math throughout my day jobs, I’d have laughed in disbelief. Thanks very much!

    Hi Chris--Welcome to Blog Land! Thank you for your very kind words.

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  4. Beautiful painting
    love and light
    solange

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  5. Thank you so much for visiting, TouchedandInspired!

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